By Karen M. Gutfreund, Curator
About Karen M. Gutfreund: Karen is an artist and curator with a focus on “Art as Activism”. She has created over 45 national exhibitions with self-identified women artists, on feminist and social justice themes.
She has worked in the Painting & Sculpture Department for MoMA, the Andre Emmerick Gallery, The Knoll Group, the John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco and the Pacific Art League, Palo Alto and is an art consultant to both corporations and individuals.
Karen served as the National Exhibitions Director for the Women’s Caucus for Art, is a member of ArtTable, the Northern California Representative for The Feminist Art Project, and Curator for UniteWomen.org.
She is also co-partner in Gutfreund Cornett Art, a curatorial partnership that creates exhibitions to promote the work of activist artists with the motto “changing the world through art.”
As an artist, Karen’s artwork reflects timely issues in pursuit of social justice and positive change.
As the presenters of “HerStory” exhibitions since 2000, we share Karen’s proactive advancement of women artists. We are honored Karen accepted our request for an article about her recent exhibition “Surface Tension”. This is Karen’s second contribution to the Manhattan Arts International series of articles. We look forward to sharing more with you. (You will find her previous article here: “Agency: Feminist Art and Power Exhibition”.)
Banner image: Details of art by Karen M. Gutfreund, Sherry Karver, and Lisa Marie Kwesell
Karen M. Gutfreund, Ocean Dreams (bubbles), (2025), resin, alcohol ink, wax, in wood frame, 20.5″ x 20.5″
Historically, my curatorial practice has centered on activist and social justice themed exhibitions filled with works where the strong message is as important as the medium—art for social change. Yet in response to the current state of the world, I’ve felt compelled to shift—to create exhibitions that celebrate the beauty and light that still surrounds us and offer a form of transcendence. Inspired by works that draw from women’s lived experiences, emotional currents, and life’s inherent complexity, I look for the evocative power of color, texture and text to cultivate connection.
Sherry Karver, Distant Horizon, (2025), photo images, oil, decorative text paper, resin surface on wood panels, 24″ x 18″ x 2″
I was thrilled to be asked to curate an exhibition for Arc Gallery & Studios in San Francisco and as always, I endeavor to promote women in the arts. An interesting, albeit depressing, fact is that 85% of art in museums and “white-cube” spaces are by white males with the rest distributed between women and artists of color. So, until the statistics change, I will continue on this path of women only exhibitions for my curatorial practice.
I am fascinated with process art — work that goes beyond simple paint on a canvas. I am particularly captivated with resin and encaustic work. I am equally drawn to pieces that carry language within them: text, symbols, embedded messages that sit beneath or within the surface. There is something irresistible about art that asks you to look twice—first at the sheen, the texture, the physicality, and then at the quiet narrative tucked inside.
Jenny Reinhardt, Vigilant, (2026), acrylic paint, gel prints, gold leaf, and collage materials under resin, on art board, 16″ round
The works I chose for this exhibition all displayed a tension between what is immediately visible and what is slowly revealed. I want the surface to seduce you, but I also want it to hold secrets. Resin, text, and layered materials build pieces that feel alive — shifting depending on the light, the angle, or the time you spend with them. The surface becomes a threshold — a place where meaning gathers and transforms. The interplay between texture, translucency, and text becomes a way of exploring what we reveal and what we bury.
Surface Tension featured artists Liz Bloomfield, Natalia Burd, Karen M. Gutfreund, Jeannine Henebry and Lucky Rapp (collaboration), Sherry Karver, Lisa Marie Kwesell, Jenny Reinhardt, Sawyer Rose and ZaHaVa Sherez.
Liz Bloomfield, Pierced Veil No. 2, (2026), ceramic, 8″ x 11″ x 2″
These ten contemporary women artists explore how meaning emerges through layers of material, memory, and language. Working across sculpture, photography, painting, and mixed media, they share a fluency in text and subtext, reflection and shape, mystery and emotional nuance. Through immersive storytelling, the work dissolves boundaries between viewer, subject, and landscape—inviting us to read between the lines and feel the tension beneath the gloss. Meaning flickers between what is said, what is shown, and what is felt—surfacing in bold declarations, whispered narratives, and the quiet shimmer of lived experience.
Lisa Marie Kwesell, Check In / Check Out – SLAMMED, (2026), conceptual digital collage, rice paper, encaustic on wood, 8″ x 8″. Framed: 10″ x 10″
My goal is to create exhibitions celebrating the human spirit that are visually engaging but also layered with ideas and quiet narratives. I believe Surface Tension did just that and I hope you, the viewers will enjoy diving into the artists’ work and their stories.
The full catalog is available to view online at: issuu.com/karengutfreund/docs/surface_tension and a print copy is available on Amazon.
Karen M. Gutfreund
Curator
karengutfreund.com
Congrats to Renee and Karen. Great article and works.
Thank you Dee,
I hope all is well with you.
It was a pleasure publishing this interview with Barbara, a revolutionary artist!
Thank you so much Karen for including me in this great article about the show “Surface Tension”, and thank you Renee for “Her Story”. You are both so generous and helpful to women artists! Greatly appreciate all you do to promote women’s art.
Thank you Sherry,
Congratulations on being in the “Surface Tension” exhibition.
We are both very fortunate to know Karen, an incredible artist and curator.
Thank you again for submitting your art for the “HerStory” exhibition!